Over 125 of the 320 pages in this book are either blank, or taken up with black-and-white illustrations, of subjects as various as Madonna and her former husband Guy Ritchie, slates arranged by Richard Long, Buddhist truth-seekers going for a walk in a wood, and a little boy having his Bar Mitzvah in a New York restaurant. It is in the remaining 200 or so pages that the author must persuade his readers that there is no reason why atheists should not practise a religion, or, if they are not disposed to follow one of the existing cults, why they should not make one up for themselves. It is an attractive point of view. ‘La guerre’, as Clemenceau noted, ‘c’est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaires’. Religion, likewise, is perhaps too serious a matter to be left to the rabbis or the General Synod.
Clearly, de Botton is not addressing himself to fundamentalists of any persuasion.
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